This book is an account of a highly successful but little-known community development project in the Andes of southern Peru. In 1959, Oscar Nüñez del Prado, a Peruvian anthropologist, and his collaborators began working in Kuyo Chico, a community of about 350 Indians. During the next decade, they were able to change it from an exploited and disadvantaged community to one that enjoyed a greater control over its future and more of the “goods” of life.
In the Introduction, William F. Whyte places the Kuyo Chico Program in the contexts of applied anthropology and sociocultural change in Peru. Then, Núñez del Prado describes the setting, process, and results of the Program. Many of the specific changes were linked, an illustration being a home improvement project. During the remodeling, the shortcomings of the traditional straw roof laid the basis for starting a roof tile industry. The shortage of wood to heat the kilns led the Kuyos to become concerned enough with future wood requirements that they planted several thousand tree seedlings. The laborious process of watering them by hand stimulated renovation of an abandoned irrigation canal.
The establishment of two social clubs provided another series of linked changes as did adult literacy and medical programs. Among other significant changes discussed are a producers and consumers cooperative, reorganization of Kuyo Chico as a legally recognized Indigenous Community, abandonment of the costly fiesta system, and the reclamation of lost land.
Whyte then presents and analyzes some quantitative measures of the changes in the Kuyos’ attitudes toward the community, the future, work, faith in people, fatalism-optimism, traditionalism-modernity, and civic participation.
The last main section of the book contains twelve lessons for applied anthropology, based on the Kuyo Chico experience. They appear under the following subheadings: 1) plan the work for the cultural context; 2) think in terms of the geographic, economic, and social contexts; 3) combine the new with the traditional; 4) the legal focus; 5) the confrontation of power; 6) systems of community consultation; 7) patience; 8) the selection of projects; 9) the interrelations among projects; 10) organization by age categories; 11) recognition and formation of leadership; and 12) the solidarity of the intervention team.
The Program had a profound effect on the Kuyos and even affected some neighboring communities, but any further, long-range impact remains to be seen. The present situation in Peru provides an excellent opportunity to find out, as the military government is instituting a series of very significant changes on a national and regional basis.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in directed cultural change at the community level.
